At the stroke of midnight on Sunday, Weibo absolutely exploded over a divorce announcement from Wang Baoqiang, an actor and beloved superstar in China.
The post has received a whopping number of comments —almost three million — leaving the Chinese internet in a mix of disbelief and anger, resulting in total chaos.
Four days later, Ma Rong, Wang's wife and business partner, is a household name in China too — though in a much more negative light.
The two used to appear very loving in public, like when Wang kneeled in front of her at a screening of one of his films in Cannes.
The divorce announcement struck a nerve with the entire country, mostly because people can't stand bad things happening to Wang, who's always cast as the innocent good guy in comedies. He's also a success story himself, having worked his way up from being a construction worker.
The amount of vitriol that's been sent Ma's way since the annoucment has been stunning. Her first public response to the accusation received even more comments than Wang's — 4.3 million — with scores people calling her a "prostitute" or "bitch."
Rumors spread that she jumped off a building in despair, but she and her accused lover — seen here chatting together in happier times — soon reportedly appeared amid Flushing, New York's enormous Chinese diaspora.
And the furor hasn't died down as the week has gone on. The state-run Global Times even published an op-ed demanding that the public not "dwarf" the Olympic proposal of two Chinese divers with celebrity gossip.
Some Chinese feminists are suggesting that the public has a double standard when it comes to women having affairs, using a recent celebrity couple's case in which the majority of the public urged the wife to forgive the husband who had an affair for the children's sake, as an example.
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(She did forgive him.)
No matter how the divorce ends, the public's opinion of Ma seems to be solidifying. According to a recent Weibo poll, which asked "who will win, Wang, Ma or [the agent]," 97% out of the 300,000 responders are overwhelmingly on Wang's side.
